This article is part of a series spotlighting The Bond Buyer’s ten 2020 Deal of the Year award winners, running from December 9 through 15. One of these honorees will be chosen as our national Deal of the Year at a virtual event taking place December 16. For more information on the Deal of the Year winners and how to obtain a complimentary pass for the virtual event, click
The Connecticut Green Bank, the nation’s first state-level green bank, in 2020 launched its Green Liberty bonds, tailored to entice more socially conscious retail investors by offering bonds in $1,000 denominations.
The Rocky Hill-based bank in July sold $16 million of the state-supported solar home renewable energy credit to retail and institutional investors, the proceeds of which were independently certified by Kestrel Verifiers as financing projects with climate and environmental benefits. The deal earned it recognition as Innovative Deal of the Year.
And the bank plans to issue Green Liberty Bonds annually with the next issuance slated for Earth Day 2021.
“At the Connecticut Green Bank, we are committed to innovation that brings more green energy to the residents of our state,” said Bert Hunter, executive vice president and chief investment officer of the bank. “We hope that other issuers will look to the Green Liberty bond model as a template to create more ways to connect retail purchasers and institutions with investments that support efforts locally and globally to confront climate change.”
The bank indeed has had a number of inquiries from other issuers interested in securitizing energy or carbon-based credits as well as those intrigued by reaching more retail investors.
The issuer’s focus on climate change and its effects on the state were the impetus for creating the Liberty bonds.
“Climate change is real and there is so much more to do,” the bank’s chief executive, Bryan Garcia, said on an investor call in the summer. “We wanted to create a financial instrument that allows Americans to invest in the climate economy and the future they want to see."
Proceeds refinanced expenditures of the bank to its residential solar incentive program and funded a special capital reserve fund.
S&P Global Ratings rated the bonds A, with a stable outlook.
The bonds sold last year commemorated the 50thanniversary of Earth Day, observed last April. They were modeled after World War II Series E bonds, which more than 80 million Americans purchased and which provided $185 billion of revenue.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited Hartford in 1943 to promote war bond sales alongside the Girl Scouts at the Bushnell theater, now the Bushnell Performing Arts Center.
“Connecticut has a rich history in terms of innovation,” Garcia said.
The quasi-public Green Bank began in 2011 as a successor to the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, with an emphasis on financing clean energy initiatives, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure.
While it’s not a state agency, the state treasurer is an ex-officio board member.
The 2019 deal marked the bank’s inaugural rated debt issuance, and the first solar asset-backed security transaction by a green bank. It won awards for green-bond issuance from the website Environmental Finance.
